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"Blackwood's" 



History of the United States 




By 



FREDERICK S DICKSON 



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''Blackwood's' 
History of the United States 



By / 

FREDERICK S DICKSON 



Still, as we have said, the truth will some day leak out, and then " — 

The Spectator, January 2^, i8g6 



Philadf.lphia 

George H Buchanan and Company 

1896 



25787 

Copyright, 1896, 

By Frederick S. Dickson, 

Philadelphia. 







/}Dy Bon 



"blackwood's" 
History of the United States 



AN article in the London " Spectator" for January 25, 
1896, will probably puzzle more than one Ameri- 
can reader. It is entitled " American Dislike for 
England " and its general character may be fully appre- 
ciated from its opening paragraph which I quote as 
follows : 

" To a very large body, nay, to the vast majority of 
Englishmen, one of the most painful aspects of the present 
controversy has been the evidence afforded that Americans 
seem utterly unaware of the strong feeling of friendship 
felt here for their country — a feeling rising in many minds 
to something approaching passion. The ordinary untraveled 
American has clearly never realized that the old country 
looks with intense pride and sympathy on the splendid 
daughter-State. We know that within the Union dwell 
the majority of those whom Carlyle so happily called ' the 
subjects of King Shakespeare ; ' and we feel that the Anglo- 
Saxon race can never ' give its heart its rights' unless the 
two great branches are brought into harmony, and America 
can claim a share in the glory of Nelson and Scott, while 
we take ours in Washington and Lincoln. It is not too 
much to say that no class here, rich or poor, is without the 
warmest feeling of sympathy for America. An English 



public man, who showed hatred of America, or insulted 
her in his speeches or writings, would at oncelose his place 
in the national respect — would be drummed out of public 
life. No poet could direct his verse against America ; no 
man of letters attack our kinsfolk as a nation, or express a 
desire for the downfall of the Union. The satirist might 
make fun of the American as he makes fun of the York- 
shireman or the cockney, but anything like a desire to 
insult the national honor, or to rejoice at the difficulties or 
misfortunes of America, would most certainly be treated 
with indignation. The notion of an English Minister or 
Ex-Minister, or even of an English M. P., prophesying the 
downfall of the American Union and dwelling on it as a 
source of gratification for his country, is simply unthink- 
able. The man who gloated over the notion of America's 
ruin would be hissed as a traitor to the race. But though 
the knowledge of this friendly feeling is such a common- . 
place with us, it seems to be undreampt of in America. iT 
There, not only is a great deal of hatred and contempt 
expressed for the old country, but the people at large seem 
genuinely ignorant of the good feeling for America which 
is so general and so genuine here. That the Americans 
should believe that they hate us, or at any rate should pro- 
fess to do so, is a very grievous wound to Englishmen ; but 
if it is so — well, all we can do is to wait in the hope that a bet- 
ter feeling will some day arise. Love is not to be compelled, 
hired, or bought. What, however, is bitter beyond bearing 
is the thought that the Americans not only do not like us, 
but do not even know that we like them." 

Further on this same article refers to the January num- 
ber of "Blackwood," in which " a very interesting account is 
given of the spirit of ill-feeling towards England which is 
inculcated in the minds of the children of the States." 
The school histories, it appears, are all wrong in spirit if not 
in fact, and if the Americans were as anxious as the 



English are "to forgive and forget that civil war [of 1776] 
they would surely not try to keep open these old sores." 

But suppose America were willing to accede to " Black- 
wood's" modest request and expurgate all reference to the 
Revolution (or Rebellion) of ^jd, the war of 1812, and 
various other annoying items of so-called history, and agree 
that hereafter we would teach our children of England's 
attitude to America from the more reliable pages of " Black- 
wood " alone, would that be deemed a satisfactory and 
sufficient concession? In view of this suggestion it might 
be well to ascertain what would be the nature and scope of 
this new " Blackwood's History of the United States." And 
let me say at the outset of the inquiry that in awarding the 
palm to " Blackwood," I would not make any invidious 
distinctions and claim that a " Blackwood's History of the 
United States" would be entitled to any higher authority 
as a school text-book than a "Saturday Review History" 

or a " London Times History," or a " History," in 

which blank almost any other English journal (baring only 
a few of what " Blackwood " calls " not very creditable 
exceptions,") may fill in its own name if jealous of the dis- 
tinction to be conferred upon a rival. Indeed, there is no 
room for jealousy at all, for, if needs be, we can make a 
composite history, as those clever photographers make a 
composite head by photographing on a single plate any 
number of separate heads, one on top of the other, and the 
lines of the whole are taken to represent the typical head 
of the race. What a Yankee we would get by such a 
process ! But that is a task for some clever Briton to work 
out ; it is quite beyond my meagre powers. If I can suc- 
cessfully show the American as " Blackwood " saw him 
from i860 to 1866, and as the " Spectator " sees him now, 
I believe we will find him quite composite enough to satisfy 
our thirst for knowledge in this direction. If my humble 
effort to provide suitable instruction for the children of 



America meets with the approval of " Blackwood " and the 
" Spectator " it will be an easy matter to secure its intro- 
duction to our public schools, and in the meantime I will 
take from my own son the text-book that is poisoning his 
mind and give him in place thereof a copy of this first 
edition of " Blackwood's History of the United States," 
instanter. And now to our ideal history ! 

In January, 1862, we are told that " all American his- 
tory is written to prove, not that Americans have performed 
great actions, but that their actions were great because they 
were performed by Americans."* In America, "the pop- 
ular idols have been manufactured, generally, of the very 
coarsest and commonest clay ; and, even when permitted 
to remain on their pedestals, they are objects, at least, as 
much of ridicule as of admiration. "f The people of the 
North, generally, are referred to as " savage abolitionists," 
or " fanatic Unionists," or collectively as a " gibbering 
mob." " Blackwood's" estimate of public men is discrim- 
inating, as might be expected. Grant " cannot be set beside 
McClellan, in generalship, without wronging McClellan." 
Sherman is " a grissly fanatic," Stanton " a presumptious 
fanatic," Capt. Wilkes " an impudent pirate," Mr. Seward's 
State Papers are " inflated nonsense," and so on through 
the long list of men made prominent by the war. The 
only Northern man mentioned with approval by " Black- 
wood," from i860 to 1865, was General McClellan, and this 
favorable opinion was not made manifest until McClellan 
had received the Democratic nomination for the Presi- 
dency. He is, however, rather reproved for a want of the 
nerve of a Napoleon, or a Cromwell, in that after Antietam 
he did not " conclude an armistice with Lee, march on 
Washington, hurl from their seats the clique that burlesqued 
a government, * * * and seize the loose reins of 

*Vol. 91, p. 123. f Vol. 96, p. 619. 



empire."* Certainly," Blackwood" had here the satisfac- 
tion of shattering one of America's " clay idols," for praise 
of such a character and from such a source was death to 
its object. 

The editor of " Blackwood" sees in the defeat of the 
Federal armies simply " the exposure of the empty pre- 
tensions of a bully," and he declares that " we cannot even 
pretend to keep our countenance when the exploits of the 
Grand Army of the Potomac are filling all Europe with 
inextinguishable laughter," and he knows " not whether 
to pity most the officers who lead such men, or the men 
who are led by such officers. "f In January, 1862, " Eng- 
lishmen are unable to see anything peculiarly tragical in 
the fact that half-a-million men have been brought together 
in arms to hurl big words at each other across a river."| 

The " Spectator" tells us that " the ordinary untraveled 
American has clearly never realized that the old country 
looks with intense pride and sympathy on the splendid 
daughter-State," which only goes to prove how very ordi- 
nary and untraveled the most of us are, and how difficult 
it is for us to keep pace with the changing views of the 
step-mother-country. 

In January, 1862, the editor asks, "What despotism 
has displayed so little moderation in prosperity, so little 
dignity in adversity, less self control, less wisdom in coun- 
cil, less courage in the field ?"§ 

In April, 1862, we are told that Americans " do not 
demand our respect because of their achievements in art, 
or in literature, or in science, or philosophy. They can 
make no pretence to the no less real, though less beneficent, 
reputation of having proved themselves a great military 
power. Their boast is that they are prosperous and free," 
but " the principal result of American freedom on the char- 



*Vol. 96, p. 640. fVol. 90, pp. 395, 396. J Vol. 91, p. 118. 

§ Vol. 91, p. 121. 



lO 

acter of the American people in their foreign relations has 
hitherto been arrogance, intolerance, and aggression."* 

Matters have not improved apparently by May, 1863, 
for' our system is then branded as one " which has for years 
been the most corrupt ever known, and the inability of 
which to produce any kind of political merit is one of the 
wonders of the world. "f 

It is as bad, or worse, in November, 1863, when we 
are informed that we are " a nation whose conduct of 
the war has never been marked by a single generous 
deviation."! 

In December, 1863, we learn that " Europe is so accus- 
tomed to Federal mendacity and exaggeration, so con- 
vinced of Federal unscrupulousness, that the construction 
put on a dubious telegram is not generally such as can 
greatly benefit the Northern cause. "§ The Psalmist said, 
" I have said in my haste all men are liars !" How much 
more delicate is the touch of*' Blackwood," 

In November, 1864, the "truculence" of the North is 
mourned over, and the editor finds it " easy to understand 
why the majority of the people of the North approve the 
conduct of the war, if we admit sorrowfully that the base 
temptations of gain and of gratified rancor may be too strong 
for ordinary consciences. "|| Of course, any one would 
sympathize with " Blackwood " in such a sorrow as this. 

" Cornelius O'Dowd," as late as January, 1 865 , is of the 
opinion that the entire civil war was gotten up as a spectacle 
for the delectation of Europe, and he is convinced that if 
Europe had refused to report the affair or comment upon it 
" the combatants would have been chewing the cud of peace 
together two years since. "Tf To an Englishman such cru- 
elty may seem wit. I have called attention elsewhere to 
the fact that one year later the " O'Dowd " changed his 



* Vol. 91, p. 535. f Vol. 93, p. 636. J Vol. 94, p. 641. 

g Vol. 94, p. 752. II Vol. 96, p. 644. f Vol. 97, p. 59. 



II 

mind, or at least changed his pen to meet altered con 
ditions. 

The " Spectator" asks, " What can we do to make the 
Americans feel more kindly towards us ?" and believes the 
answer is " by getting them to realize what we feel towards 
them." But, may I ask, when are we to take a census of 
England's feeling towards America ? When we are in 
trouble and they are not, or when they are in trouble and 
we are not ? 

England made little attempt to conceal her joy in the 
apparent downfall of the Republic. In October, 1861, 
" Blackwood " exclaims : 

" And the venerable Lincoln, the respectable Seward, 
the raving editors, the gibbering mob, and the swift-footed 
armies of Bull's Run, are no malicious tricks of fortune, 
played off on an unwary nation, but are all of them 
the legitimate offspring of the Great Republic," and 
the writer was " glad," too, " that the end of the Union 
seems more likely to be ridiculous than terrible."* 

In January, 1862, we are further informed that " Black- 
wood " did "not desire above all things that the struggle 
should be at once concluded, no matter how ; because a 
conclusion which would leave the South at the mercy of a 
vindictive, unfair, and ungenerous enemy would gratify 
nobody. We do not lament over the unexampled display 
of weakness made by the Great Republic, because we knew 
that such weakness existed, and it was not for the interest 
of truth nor of the world that it should any longer be dis- 
guised, or allowed to vaunt itself as matchless force."f 
The writer is clearly satisfied " in the dissolution of a system 
that had become rotten and offensive while yet it preserved 
the appearance of life."| " But the secession of the South is 
not the only nor the greatest peril that threatens the 
Republic. There is an Abolition Party that is hostile to 

*Vol. 90, p. 396. f Vol. 91, p. 118. \Id., p. 123. 



12 

Union ; there is a Union Party that is hostile to Abolition ; 
and though these discordant elements have hitherto been 
held together by the common tie of hatred of the South, 
yet they threaten speedily to start asunder. Nor will the 
North be split by party conflicts alone ; territorial differ- 
ences are likely to cause further dismemberment."* 

In the light of history we may see how much the wish 
was father to the thought. 

In September the editor sees " daily more reason to 
believe that a nation which has all the will to dictate to 
others is losing the power which it would be certain to 
misuse."t 

" Recent events," a reviewer exclaims in December, 
1862, " by weakening the American States, and discrediting 
the American principles of government, have turned the 
tables very much in our favor."J 

In January, 1863, no concealment is attempted, but it 
is boldly proclaimed that " every person who reflects on 
the matter must be aware that it is the interest of all nations, 
but especially of England, to have more than one great 
republic upon the American continent, as the United States 
were fast becoming such a nuisance in the republic of 
nations, that if by any accident they should succeed in their 
war of subjugation, their insolence and arrogance would be 
more intolerable than ever."§ 

In November, 1 863, the editor exclaims " that the South 
should achieve its independence single-handed, and by its 
own efforts, and by the further disruption of the Northern 
tyranny, is what would be best for itself mid for us. * * * 
But it will matter a great deal to us whether there is one 
great bullying power always menacing us through Canada, 
or several smaller powers, with any one of which Canada 
herself would be competent to deal." || 



* Id., p. 129. t Vol. 92, p. 387. + Vol. 92, p. 710. 

§ Vol. 93, p. 25. II Vol. 93, p. 651. 



13 

From all this it is entirely clear that the writer or 
writers of those words did rejoice in the disruption of the 
Union, were anxious that the conflict should be prolonged 
until the parties were exhausted, and that the secession of 
the South should be followed by further dismemberment, 
not for the benefit of the Southern Confederacy, but to 
serve the selfish interests of the British Empire. 

Yet the " Spectator " tells us that " the man who gloated 
over the notion of America's ruin would be hissed as a 
traitor to the race." 

During our Civil War England did not actively befriend 
the South while venting her enmity on the North. She was 
not satisfied that the South was right, while very certain 
that the North was wrong. " Blackwood " did " not profess to 
feel sentimentally towards the South any more than towards 
the North." * It was not a question of sentiment but ol 
business. She was not anxious to claim kinship with either 
party, " but if we must have brothers," the reviewer 
exclaims, " let them rather be those who have achieved 
without bullying and boasting, than those who have bullied 
and boasted without achieving."t 

But words are proverbially cheap, at best. What 
would England do for the South ? Nothing ! Absolutely 
nothing, if English skins were to be risked. In January, 
1862, "Blackwood" was inclined to immediately consider 
" the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and the 
raising of the ineffectual blockade, in conjunction with 
France.''' % 

In November, 1862, Mr. Gladstone was reported as 
willing to act as he believed it " as certain as any event yet 
future and contingent can be " that the South will be suc- 
cessful. § But the Cabinet was not a unit on this. Sir G. 
C. Lewis was doubtful as to the law, but the real trouble 



* Vol. 92, p. 385. t I'i- X Vol. 91, p. 129. \ Vol. 92, p. 636. 



14 

undoubtedly was in attempting to calculate the profits of 
the enterprise, for we are plainly told in the same article 
that for England to act alone would be of very little benefit 
to the South, and " would give offence to the North, thus 
making an enemy without gaining a friend; " but, " if Eng- 
land, France and Russia would agree to undertake a joint 
mediation and, if necessary, intervention, they would render 
an important service to civilization, humanity and mankind 
at large."* As all the world knows now Russia declined 
to be made a catspaw for English greed, even under the 
guise of " civilization, humanity and mankind at large," and 
America has never forgotten the position taken in this 
instance by Russia and by England. 

Notwithstanding Russia's desertion, " Blackwood," in 
November, 1863, was still inclined to join France and sug- 
gests that if " we should raise the blockade, relieve our 
starving population, and break up the political system which 
is a standing menace to us through the weak point, Canada, 
we shall be not only acting in consonance with right, but 
fulfilling an obvious duty to ourselves." Yet, a little fearful 
of such rashness, the writer hastens to qualify it by saying, 
" but we do not mean in this place to advocate immediate 
intervention in connection with France/' and he adds that 
he did not " assert that all the ends indicated would be so 
gained."t The same uncertainty of the profits again 
causes hesitation. 

So Great Britain and France never came to an agree- 
ment on the subject, but went their ways alone, the one to 
Mexico, the other to her shipyards, where she could turn 
out vessels to prey on American commerce with certain 
profit to herself and a minimum of risk, either financial or 
physical. 

Has Great Britain forgotten the story of the Alabama ? 

* Vol. 92, p. 646. t Vol. 94, p. 639. 



15 

A ship of war was builded in an English dock-yard, 
owned by a member of the English Parliament, manned 
by English sailors, and armed with English guns and 
munitions of war. It sailed from an English port, and in 
its whole career it never once entered a Confederate har- 
bor. It burned and sank American shipping on every sea, 
and when at last it was sunk by the Kearsarge off the coast 
of France, an English yacht rescued the officers and part 
of the crew and carried them home to Great Britain. In 
i860 America stood second among the nations in the car- 
rying trade on the high seas; in 1865 her flag had disap- 
peared from the ocean, and England, as the direct result of 
her piracy, had acquired what America had lost. 

Does England think the money damages she paid has 
condoned the crime ? Does she think America has for- 
gotten ? 

Yet the " Spectator " tells us that " one of the most 
painful aspects of the present controversy has been the 
evidence afforded that Americans seem utterly unaware of 
the strong feeling of friendship felt here for their country." 

It is odd, is it not ? 

It is well known that a large proportion of the people 
of Great Britain welcomed the idea of war with America 
over the matter of the Trent in i86i,and when the difficulty 
bid fair to be settled through diplomatic channels, a result 
which was caused by the influence of Prince Albert, the 
pure, and by the attitude of the common people of 
England who held in check their aristocratic rulers, the 
editor of " Blackwood " vented his chagrin in January, 1862, 
as follows : 

" Nor do we, as a people, desire to accept any slight, 
shifty pretence of reparation for the recent ruffianly outrage, 
which may be held by some among us, to whom honor is 
but a fantastic name, to absolve us from the necessity of 
war; for previous insults from the same quarter still 



i6 

remain unatoned for, and now that we have, at enormous 
cost and with patient and self-denying efforts, amassed an 
armament which adequately represents the power of Eng- 
land, we should have no objection to employ it in admin- 
istering a sharp chastisement to the vainglorious people 
who have so often cheaply defied us. Sentiments, concilia- 
tory even to disgrace, are frequently ascribed to us ; yet 
they have no real origin in the heart of the nation. It would 
be impossible for the national vanity of America, hungry as 
it is, to extract any nourishment from what is expressed on 
the subject in the conversation of intelligent Englishmen."* 

But it wae not, I think, the fact alone that England 
had an " adequate armament " that made our friends so full 
of fight, but rather, and in the main, because we were 
already engaged with an antagonist much more vigorous 
and stalwart than we liked. 

When, in 1863, America objected to British " neutral- 
ity," as shown in the case of the Alabama and her sister 
ships, and about to be repeated on a more extensive 
scale, " Blackwood " is much less fierce, and, while not 
suggesting war, urges the government to pay no attention 
to the demands of America, as the Federal Government 
was not sincere in its " menace of war," as " its indignation 
is always simulated to serve some base purpose," and that 
the whole trouble was caused by " that lying, braggart 
press that would be a disgrace to any country but 

America."! 

As this protest of the Federal Government was made 
after " Gettysburg " had passed into history, and after the 
creation of the iron-clad fleet which left the ports of Eng- 
land helpless and her obsolete navy powerless, the vessels 
in question never were permitted to make war upon what 
was left of American commerce. 

It is both interesting and instructive after this to find 

* Vol. 91, p. 118. t Vol. 94, p. 645. 



17 

that in 1866 Blackwood had learned that " a war between 
Great Britain and the United States would be the most 
odious war in which either people could be engaged."* 

I am inclined to think that this statement contains a 
half-truth at least, provided always that America did not 
have her hands full elsewhere. 

The " Spectator," in October, 1895, makes this state- 
ment : 

" Even if the cannon were ready to fire, and the gun- 
ner's hand on the lever, there would be in the end no war, 
for on each side of the Atlantic there are millions of quiet, 
plain, undemonstrative men who would forbid the outrage 
and declare that, come what may, humiliation or no humil- 
iation, right or wrong, there should be no war." 

This paragraph is reprinted on January 25, 1896, and 
the editor ventures to think that it was not regarded in 
London " as in the least overstrained." I can neither 
answer for London nor Edinburgh, but in America 
I am sure this paragraph will be deemed very badly over- 
strained. Though we wish peace with all nations, I am 
sure that questions of " right or wrong " will have^:// to do 
with the decisions of America, be the results what they 
may. 

In 1862 " Blackwood " declares that " nobody in pri- 
vate life talks about ' our transatlantic kinsman ' — nobody 
desires to claim peculiar ties with the performers in the 
absurd and barbarous dances which the American nation 
executes round its idols of the hour, any more than with 
the worshippers of Mumbo Jumbo. * * * Nor do we 
see anything in the circumstance that America was first 
colonized from our own shores, to induce us to treat with 
extraordinary indulgence the composite population with 
whose manners, customs and character we have so little in 
common. "t "A people who have derived the principal 

* Vol. 100, p. 167. I Vol. 91, p. 118. 



accessions to their numbers from the scum of Europe."* 
In another place we are referred to as the " hybrid North."f 
And, again, it is not thought " judicious to be always speak- 
ing of the Americans as our brothers and cousins, because 
nobody thinks of them so. "J " People write seriously about 
our American cousins who are not ambitious of claiming 
Cousin Butler, or Cousin Lincoln, or Cousin Ward Beecher, 
or Cousin Sumner, as their kin, and, if not those, why so 
affectionate to the people who seem to regard these as their 
most famous men ? "§ " Why should we conceal our con- 
tempt when absurdities far more mischievous, and on an 
immensely extended scale, are committed by those whom 
twaddling sentimentalists term ' our American cousins ?' "|| 
In May, 1863, in a review of "American State Papers," 
a communication from Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams is quoted, 
in which the former says, under date of May 21, 1861, 
Great Britain " will consider what position she will hold 
when she shall have forever lost the sympathies and affec- 
tions of the only nation on whose sympathies and affections 
she has a natural claim." The writer in " Blackwood " has 
described these state papers as both " comical " and " hu- 
morous," and declares with fine wit that this " ominous and 
prophetic warning is a sad picture of the British Pythias 
abandoned by the American Damon, and left alone and 
friendless in the world." How ominous and prophetic this 
warning was the editor of " Blackwood " did not wait long 
to learn, and in July, 1866, when the poor relation had 
again become rich.thesame journal, with amazing effrontery, 
complacently acknowledges that while *' we may not 
always like the Americans, we can never forget that 
they are our kindred. "1 And in August of the same year 
" Cornelius O'Dowd " urges us to " grasp manfully and 
warmly the hand that is outstretched to you, and let the 



* Vol. 91, p. 121. t Vol. 94, p. 647. J Vol. 93, p. 384. 

§ Vol. 94, p. 648. II Vol. 91, p. 118. ^ Vol. 99, p. 17. 



19 

feeling between the two nations be — not the conventional 
amity of Cabinets, but the hearty tone and affection of two 
kindred peoples," and Mr. O'Dowd naively acknowledges 
that it is precisely because of " the condition of Europe, 
and the threatening attitude of France " that makes him 
willing and anxious to claim relationship with America, and 
to secure for England "one ally who is above being subsid- 
ized and not above being esteemed," and because also, 
England has " neither true friend nor well-wisher on the 
continent of Europe." He refers to the " marvelous 
development of the Great Republic, its might, its maj- 
esty and its wealth, its greatness in the present and its 
still grander future," and " would draw closer to those 
who, once our narrow squabbles are forgotten, could not 
but regard the old country with affection, and would never 
stand coldly by to see her assailed by overwhelming odds, 
or crushed beneath the united forces of despotism."* Is 
it conceivable that this is the same journal which in Janu- 
ary, 1862, asserts that " had the Americans been permitted 
to see the true reflections of our minds — had they been 
aware of the extent and depth of the contempt with which 
we have regarded their doings — it could scarcely have 
failed to modify their conduct of the Civil War " ?f Or is 
this the country, " the spoiled child Democracy," which, 
"after playing strange pranks before high heaven, and 
figuring in odd and unexpected disguises, dies as surely 
from lack of vitality as the oldest of worn-out despotisms " 
which is so graphically and generously described by 
" Blackwood " in October, 1861 ?J 

When we are told by the " Spectator," on January 25, 
1896, that the English school children are taught that " the 
United States is not and never can be in reality a foreign 
country, nor an American a foreigner," and that " they and 
we are one flesh," the conclusion is forced upon us that the 



* Vol. 99, pp. 240, 242, 243. t ^'ol- 9i> P- 120. :}: Vol. 90, p. 307. 



education of the average English editor has been sorely 
neglected in the past. 

Abraham Lincoln was naturally an object of interest 
to the English editor during our Civil War, and the estima- 
tion in which he was held by " Blackwood" is most lumi- 
nously portrayed. Read this passage from the number for 
January, 1862 : 

" But to what country shall we look for hereditary 
princes less fit to wield the destinies of nations than the 
obscure and commonplace man whose decrees now stand 
in the place of public law in the North ? It may be said 
that at least he is the choice of the nation. But was he 
chosen by the intelligence of the nation ? Or, to take lower 
ground, does he represent the material interests and respon- 
sibilities of the nation ? Not at all ; he is the choice of the 
numerical majority of a people who have derived the prin- 
cipal accessions to their numbers from the scum of Europe. 
Every four years the Constitution is in travail — all man- 
kind are invited, or rather commanded, to watch the inter- 
esting event — all is convulsion — the throes of the mountain 
are prodigious, and the latest result is — Mr. Abraham Lin- 
coln. The great achievement in self-government of this 
vaunted democracy, which we have been so loudly and arro- 
gantly called on to admire, is, to drag from his proper ob- 
scurity an ex-rail-splitter and country attorney, and to place 
what it calls its liberties at his august disposal. No country 
furnishes so many examples as England of great men who 
have risen from humble beginnings. But it would have 
been impossible for him, or any of his Cabinet, to have 
emerged, under British institutions, from the mediocrity to 
which nature had condemned them, and from which pure 
democracy alone was capable of rescuing them. Are the 
best Americans willing to accept Mr. Abraham Lincoln 
and Mr. W. H. Seward as their best men ? If not, can 
they substitute better men? If they cannot, what other 



proof is needed of the inefficacy of their boasted institutions ? 
An imbecile executive above, a restless, purposeless multi- 
tude below, linked together like a kite tied to a balloon 
and drifting at the mercy of the air currents, while respect- 
ability, moderation and sense are pushed aside, or dragged 
helplessly along, — such is the spectacle presented, in the 
first storm, by the model Republic. A gallant army, whose 
energies have been displayed chiefly in flight — a free 
country, whose judges are over-looked by sentries — disin- 
terested patriotism, that requires to be bribed with eight per 
cent. — a united nation, where the elements of dissolution are 
rife — a practical people, who are spending more than they 
possess for an object which they cannot define, — such are 
a few of the results of those remarkable institutions that 
have been recommended for our imitation as immense 
improvements on our own. 

" Of course we do not blame Mr. Lincoln for being 
President. But we venture to pity him. No man is more 
unfortunate than he who is in a conspicuous position for 
which he is manifestly unfit. What had this ill-starred man 
done to merit such a visitation as to be set at the head of 
an unruly nation that is going to pieces in convulsions? 
* * * He is said to have exhibited considerable dex- 
terity and muscular power in the splitting of rails. * * * 
In his public compositions he is distinguished chiefly for 
a disregard of grammar and an infatuated fondness for 
metaphor. He gets laboriously on to a figure of speech, 
which generally runs away with him, and, after exhibiting 
him in various eccentric postures, leaves him sprawling in 
an attitude highly unbecoming in the President of a great 
Republic."* 

In September, 1862, " Blackwood " begins " to doubt 
the shrewdness and common sense of a people who are 
content to follow with senseless shouting the pigmy impos- 

* Vol. 91, pp. 121-122. 



tors who are conducting them into such frightful 
quagmires."* 

In November, 1862, the President's emancipation proc- 
lamation is described as " a monstrous, reckless and devil- 
ish project," and as " an effort to paralyze the victorious 
armies of the South by letting loose upon their hearths and 
homes the lust and savagery of four million negroes," and 
" it proves what every one in this countr}^ was loth to 
believe, that rather than let the Southern States be inde- 
pendent, rather than lose their trade and custom, the North 
would league itself with Beelzebub, and seek to make a hell 
of half a continent. In return this atrocious act justifies 
the South in hoisting the black flag and proclaiming a war 
without quarter against the Yankee hosts. "f This procla- 
mation is further characterized as "■ the most atrocious act 
of war-policy which has ever been adopted by a civilized 
state." And Mr. Lincoln " had previously, with the gen- 
eral concurrence of the people, inaugurated a dictatorship, 
abolished liberty, and installed force as the supreme power 
in the States which had still adhered to the Union.";]: 

In January, 1863, it is stated that " there is no personal 
sacrifice that the people of the South are not prepared to 
make rather than again trust their independence, private 
fortunes, and liberty, to a paper constitution, guaran- 
teed only by the oaths of such men as Sumner and Lin- 
coln, both doubly forsworn, "§ The same article describes 
the United States as " merely the military despotism of a 
portion of the States, striving under the dictatorship of an 
insignificant lawyer to crush out the freedom of the 
rest."|l 

In November, 1863, the Lincoln government is 
described as "the purest despotism now existing, with 
the exception, perhaps, of some African system in regions 



* Vol. 92, p. 387. t Vol. 92, p. 636. t A/., p. 640. 

? Vol. 93, p. 28. II Z/., p. 29. 



to which Speke and Grant have failed to penetrate,"* In 
December we are told that " the Washington Cabinet and 
its military adherents are conspicuous only for imbecile 
pretension, and none but the strongest evidence can be 
received as proof that they have blundered into wisdom or 
stumbled on success. "j 

In November, 1864, Mr. Lincoln was said to have 
" nothing except the honesty of purpose generally ascribed 
to him to distinguish him from the swarm of politicians 
and generals that have been engendered by the corruption 
of the defunct Union. "| In the same article it is presumed 
" that i\Ir. Lincoln would not imagine that either his 
previous occupation as a rail-splitter, or the fact of his 
election as President, could of itself qualify him for deliv- 
ering grave opinions on extensive military combinations."! 
And again we are told that " the re-election of Lincoln 
would mean that the sentiments of the Northern people 
are fitly represented in him, his ministers, and generals — 
that, for the sake of producing a hideous caricature of 
their former partnerships in government, they are ready to 
sanction more cruelties in the South — more peculation, 
corruption, and tyranny in the North — and to inspire 
civilized nations with more horror and disgust for the 
frenzied acts in which they express devotion to their politi- 
cal Moloch."|l 

To say the least, it seems odd, after all this, to learn 
from " Blackwood," in November, 1866, after the Union was 
restored and America more powerful than ever, that Abra- 
ham Lincoln, though " sometimes doubtful of the result, 
was never doubtful of his duty," that " in his character 
there was no malice, no animosity, no arriere pensee^' that 
amidst fierce passion "he was calm, equable, patient and 
merciful," that "this good and merciful man was good and 



*Vol. 94. p. 649. t'^'ol. 9-1, p. 752. t Vol. 96, p. 619. 

I Li. p' 624. II Jd., p. 643. 



24 

merciful to the end," and that " the pistol of a fanatic 
deprived the Southern people of a friend and the Northern 
people of a man after their own heart, who, through good 
and ill fortune had fought their fight with a humble, con- 
trite, and an honest spirit, and given them the victories for 
which they had hungered and thirsted for four miserable 
years."* 

Too late ! Too late ! 

" Sic semper tyrannis^,'' shouted Wilkes Booth, as he 
dropped his smoking pistol on that fateful night. Fanatic ! 
Aye ! Say you so ? But who taught him these words, 
Messieurs Editors ? 

Is this the same Abraham Lincoln for whom " Black- 
wood " did not feel " the slightest admiration or respect " 
in November, 1863 ? Is this the " Cousin Lincoln " with 
whom England would not care to claim kinship? Is this 
the " insignificant lawyer," the " country attorney," the 
"imbecile executive," the " ex-rail-splitter," " dragged from 
his proper obscurity " by the votes of the emigrated " scum 
of Europe?" 

And when we are told in the " Spectator" that " the 
Anglo-Saxon race can never ' give its heart its rights ' 
unless the two great branches are brought into harmony, 
and America can claim a share in the glory of Nelson and 
Scott, while we take ours in Washington and Lincoln," 
I am compelled to ask what share can England demand in 
the fame of Abraham Lincoln, when we are told that " it 
would have been impossible for him to have emerged, 
under British institutions, from the mediocrity to which 
nature had condemned him, and from which pure democ- 
racy alone was capable of rescuing him." ? 

" Punch " is, I believe, presumed by courtesy to be both 
humorous and liberal in its tone. As an example of both 
I will quote a few lines from its number of December 10, 



*Vol. ICO, pp 635, 636. 



1864, taken from what it is pleased to call " President 
Lincoln's Inaugural Speech :"* 

" Well, we've done it, gentlemen. Bully for us. Cow- 
hided the copperheads considerable. No)i nobis, of course, 
but still I reckon we have had a hand in the glory, some. 
That reminds me of the Old World story about the Hand 
of Glory, which I take to have been the limb of a gentle- 
man who had been justified on the gallows, and which the 
witches turned into a patent moderator lamp, as would lead 
a burglar safe into any domicile which he might wish to 
plunder. We ain't burglars, quite t'other, but I fancy that 
if Uli Grant could get hold of that kind and description of 
thing to help him into Richmond, he'd not be so un-Chris- 
tian proud as to refuse the hand of a malefactor. {Right, 
right!) Well, right or left hand, that's no odds, gentlemen. 
{Lat(ghter.) Now, I am sovereign of the sovereign people of 
this great and united republic for four years next ensuing 
the date hereof, as I used to say when I was a lawyer. 
{You are ! Bully for you !) Yes, gentleman, but you must 
do something more than bully for me, you must fight for 
me, if you please, and whether you please or not. As the 
old joke says," 

But that is sufficient. The stupidity of the whole is 
as marked as its malice. Doubtless the mass of English 
readers have never realized that it was a burlesque, any more 
than they were able to discover its wit. 

Listen ! TJiis is the conclusion of Abraham Lincoln's 
address over which English wit would thus make merry. 

" Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if 
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as 

*Vol. 47, p. 237. 



26 

was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 
that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
altogether. 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with 
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 
finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, 
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and 
with all nations." 

America to-day is still willing "to do all which may 
achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among our- 
selves and with all nations." 

Why then have I written thus ? I answer, that I may 
aid in bringing about a kindlier feeling between England 
and America ! To the thoughtless I may appear to follow 
strange paths to such an end. But " stay a little." I have 
spoken truth, because it is truth, for that and that alone, 
and truth injures no honest cause, nor is it feared by any 
honest man, nor by any sincere people. I would welcome 
a hearty, friendly alliance between England and America, 
but such an alliance can be neither just nor lasting if 
founded upon dishonesty and fraud ; and is heartless flattery 
less dishonest than undeserved detraction ? The clouds 
can only pass away when these two nations clearly realize 
and frankly acknowledge the errors of the past. 

It is true the attitude of England during our Civil War 
renders the work of fostering a more kindly feeling between 
the nations difficult, but to accomplish this end by ignoring 
the past is to attempt the impossible. England was warned 
of this again and again by her most faithful friends. On 
June 30, 1863, John Bright, standing in the House of Com- 
mons, in opposing a motion which meant war with America, 
spoke these words : 

" I have not said a word with regard to what may 



27 

happen to England if we go into war with the United 
States. But \vhen the troubles in America are over — be 
they ended by the restoration of the Union, or by separa- 
tion — that great and free people, the most instructed in the 
world, will have a wound in their hearts by your act which 
a century may not heal ; and the posterity of some of those 
who now hear my voice may look back with amazement, 
and I will say with lamentation, at the course which was 
taken by the honorable and learned gentleman, and by 
such honorable Members as may choose to follow his 
leading. [' No ! No !'] I suppose the honorable gentlemen 
who cry * No !' will admit that we sometimes suffer from 
the errors of our ancestors. There are few persons who 
will not admit that, if their fathers had been wiser, their 
children would have been happier."* 

Do the honorable gentlemen still cry " No ! No !" ? 

I have placed a fragment from the last sentence of the 
" Spectator " article upon my title page : " Still, as we have 
said, the truth will some day leak out, and then " 

Let the honest heart of Great Britain finish the 
sentence ! 



* Speeches of John Bright, Vol. I, p. 282. 
Philadelphia, February 22, 1896. 



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